November 08, 2012

In God's Underground

The most startling news I gleaned from the cells at Secret
Police headquarters was that Stalin had been denounced as a murderer and
tyrant by his successor, Kkrushchev. The first reports of how Beria and
six of his top men were executed on Christmas Eve, 1953—along with
thousands of lesser Soviet secret agents—had just been published, and
the process of discrediting Stalin had begun in Romania. Gheorghiu-Dej,
the new Romanian dictator, was introducing a more popular policy. Dej
liked to live well himself, and his temperament, at least, was an
improvement on that of the Pauker circle.

The news I took back to Jilava threw the cell into uproar. Everyone
was delighted that Stalin had been pushed from his pedestal. They hoped
it would hasten their own release.

But Popescu said, “I know the Party. They’ll denounce the robber—and they won’t repay the robbed.”

“Anyway, Stalin’s finished,” another prisoner said.

“May he burn in hell!” shouted a second.

Amid laughter and cheers, two prisoners waltzed round together,
screaming obscene remarks about “Uncle Joe.” Only the guards were
silent. Stalin’s denunciation left their future unsettled.

Popescu called to me, “You’re not looking so happy, Pastor!”

I said, “I can’t take pleasure in explosions of hatred toward anyone.
We do not know Stalin’s fate. He may have been saved at the last hour,
like the thief on the cross.”

“What! After all the crimes Stalin committed?” asked someone.

“Who knows if Stalin had not wept over his sins?” I said. “All who
repent, no matter how grievous their sins, can be forgiven. A maniac
like Hitler who burns in ovens millions of harmless people he has never
met; a mass-murderer like Stalin who kills thousands of his own
comrades—even such men can find forgiveness in Christ.”